Cash Crisis: Ola Partners With Banks,Oil And Gas Companies

In Bengaluru, Ola has partnered with BPCL to facilitate the process of obtaining fuel e-vouchers across all BPCL petrol pumps in the city.

People queue to withdraw and deposit their money at State Bank of India ATM in Guwahati, India November 11, 2016. REUTERS/Anuwar Hazarika

Cab aggregator Ola today announced that it has joined hands with leading banks and oil and gas companies to help driver-partners fight cash crunch post demonetisation of high value currency notes. In Bengaluru, Ola has partnered with BPCL to facilitate the process of obtaining fuel e-vouchers across all BPCL petrol pumps in the city, Ola said in a statement here.

Thousands of driver partners have already availed this feature and used these fuel e-vouchers issued by Ola to fill-up petrol/diesel in a cashless manner. The activity kickstarted this weekend and will continue till end of December and will also be implemented in other key cities, it said.

Apart from making fuel e-vouchers available for driver-partners, Ola has partnered with Axis Bank to put up mobile ATMs in its office to support driver-partners with accessible cash withdrawals, it said. In addition to this, Ola had also tied-up with ICICI bank to facilitate cash conversion for the driver-partners in the past weeks until exchange was permitted. Bank representatives put up kiosks at Ola office and helped driver-partners in exchanging demonetised currency into accepted denominations.

Vice President, Operations at Ola, Karanveer Singh Shekhawat said, aligned with governments Digital India mission, Ola has been working towards helping hundreds of driver partners across the country get access to digital financial benefits like bank accounts, payment cards, online transfer of earnings on a daily basis.

Ola also rolled out a number of similar initiatives for the public across the country, it added. In Kolkata, the company has partnered with Punjab National Bank (PNB) to put up mobile ATMs in its cabs to support citizens by reducing the effort of going to a bank. Ola has also rolled out a similar activity for citizens in Hyderabad, in partnership with the State Bank of India and Andhra Bank.

Similar initiatives will be flagged off in other key cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad in the coming weeks, the statement added.